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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

#ToBeShawnee: The Nephilim and Ohio's Moundbuilding culture

To Be Shawnee:

The White Giants

The traditional customs and beliefs of the Shawnee people had set them apart from the other Ohio tribes. The Shawnee were very conservative people. They believed in a supreme being known as Monitoo. This supreme being created the female deity, Our Grandmother, then charged her with the creation of the world. The Shawnee believed they were not the first tribe she created but are her favorites.

The landscape of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana was drastically different in the 16th though the 18th centuries. It was a wild frontier with lush forests, abundant wildlife and large manmade mounds. Today we know the creators of the mounds as the Moundbuilders.

The Shawnee have always believed another tribe had built the mounds but they were nothing like the people we have associated with the mounds. Oral traditions speak of a tribe known as the Nephilim who looked drastically different than the Native Americans. The members of the tribe were giants who had pale skin, dark eyes, brown or red hair, and have facial hair. They are said to have roamed Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. The Shawnee claim the Nephilim warriors were fierce fighters. The tribe had been very skilled in the arts. In fact, the Shawnee aren't the only tribes to speak legends of these people. The Cherokee, Chippewa, Sandusky and other members of the Algonquin language groups spoke their own tales of these mighty people. All the tribes who spoke legends of these people agree that it was the Nephilim who had built the mounds from Ohio to Mississippi.

The Shawnee believed their ancestors had been in numerous bloody conflicts with the Nephilim who lived in Kentucky and West Virginia. The final confrontation between the Shawnee and Nephilim occurred at Sandy Island. Sandy Island is located within the Ohio River at the Falls of Ohio. The Shawnee warriors attached the Nephilim village there. The battle was bloody, fierce and long. In the end, the Shawnee eliminated the last remaining Nephilim tribe within North America. The spirits of the Nephilim were angry at the Shawnee for their destruction. Their ghosts roamed throughout Kentucky and West Virginia. If they came upon a Shawnee they would bring harm upon them as long as they camped in Kentucky and West Virginia. The fear of retaliation from their spirits was so great that the Shawnee refused to established their villages or camp in either Kentucky or West Virginia. In fact, the word Kentucky is Shawnee means "The River of Blood." They never wanted to forget that fateful day nor the tribe of giants who had been their most fiercest enemy. They had won. Their enemy had beeb defeated but at the cost of cursing the land with the ghosts of their enemy.